The present invention relates to the stacking of sheets.
After images are formed upon sheets being processed through electronic printers or other copy machines they are sequentially fed to a sheet stacking station in a given direction. It has been found that there is interference with the orderly stacking of such sheets by various factors. One factor is that the corner of a sheet being directed into the stacker catches or snags with respect to an aperture, such as a punched hole, formed within a sheet in the stack previously fed to the sheet receptor or stacking station. It also has been observed that generally there is a tendency for sheets to stick together. The result of these phenomenon is that jamming or disorderly stacking of the sheets may result.
Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide a stacking method and apparatus that eliminates undesirable effects.
It is a further object of the present invention to eliminate undesirable effects in a manner simple and economical, which does not involve complex devices or methods for manipulating the sheets.